Page 20 of A Forgotten Heart (Wind River Mail-Order Brides #5)

E lsie had never managed a classroom like this.

“Gimme!” Ben cried.

“I won it fair and square!” Tillie stuck out her tongue at him.

Their game of marbles had gone on for too long. Elsie had sat down to supervise a while ago, and now her left foot was asleep.

Across the living room, Eli and Jo lay on their stomachs with a checkerboard between them. Jo snatched up a checker with a cackle, and Eli cried, “Hey, give that back or I’ll slug you.”

“There will be no slugging!” Elsie called out.

Eli pulled a face but ducked back to the game momentarily.

It had been a day and a half since the men left on their mission, and tempers were short.

Between the sense of possible danger and the soft snow that had been falling since last night, the kids had been cooped up in the house for too long.

Even Elsie’s real students got breaks to run around outside and release pent-up energy.

Something was on the brink, and the entire household could feel it.

Ben carefully angled his blue shooter marble toward the only two remaining marbles on the other side of the circle. Tillie had lost interest, balancing her shooter on her upper lip.

Footsteps overhead were a reminder that Rebekah had gone up to check on Kaitlyn, who’d been in bed all morning. Elsie didn’t know much about pregnancy, but Rebekah had helped her prepare breakfast with a worried frown.

Clare and David had gone to the barn for chores. Was Nick out there?

She’d barely seen Nick since the emotional conversation yesterday morning. He’d walked circles around the property, scouting for danger. Spent the rest of the time in the barn or bunkhouse. Maybe he’d come to the same conclusion she had after their talk.

She needed to keep her distance. Otherwise she risked opening her heart to him again.

Ben tossed his arms in the air. “I win again!”

Tillie whined. “I’m bored. Let’s play Sculptor again.”

Ben tossed the marbles, and they bounced noisily across the floor. “No way. We played that all morning.”

One of the flying marbles pinged over the checkerboard, and Eli made a noise of outrage.

Elsie stood, using the sofa for balance when blood flow returned to her tingling foot. “Why don’t we?—”

A loud thump on the porch interrupted her, and the kids went quiet.

What was that?

The door swung open, and Nick blew in with a light swirl of snow. David was on his heels, and Patch followed last.

Tillie and Ben ran to his side with a string of questions before he could toe his boots off.

“What took you so long?”

“Can you take me outside?”

“How come David got to go?”

“Where’s Clare?”

Nick smiled as he cued Patch to lie down on a blanket by the door and took off his gloves. “Clare’s in the barn still.”

Jo followed Nick as he moved toward the window to peer out. “Uncle Nick, I’m going to go crazy if I have to stay inside with all them.”

Tillie propped her hands on her hips. “That’s not nice.”

“Let me grab a cup of coffee and warm up, you hooligans.”

Elsie made a beeline for the kitchen. “I’ll pour.”

She met Nick at the stove. The grim set of his mouth was not reassuring.

“Thanks,” he murmured when she pressed the warm cup into his chilled hands. He glanced over his shoulder. There was movement and voices through the doorway, but the kids had stayed put. For now.

“My brothers should’ve checked in by now,” he said in a low voice.

She saw the concern in his expression. “I’m praying for them.”

Something softened in his eyes until he seemed to realize himself and shake off his expression.

“Kaitlyn’s been under the weather,” she said quickly, not wanting this moment with him to end. “Rebekah is upstairs with her.”

His forehead wrinkled. “They left you to watch all the kids?”

He seemed frustrated on her behalf.

It made her warm inside, even though she didn’t expect him to be protective.

“I have four times as many students in my class,” she said. And then regretted it when shadows darkened his eyes.

There was a crash from the front room, and they both turned in that direction.

“They’re becoming a bit stir-crazy,” she said.

“Everyone’s worried,” he said absently. “David and I had an idea that might help.”

She trailed him back to the living room, where he clapped his hands once. Ben and Eli were tussling on the floor while Jo righted the coat rack.

“Who wants to decorate for Christmas?” Nick asked.

Elsie blinked. This was his idea?

The kids cheered. David went out the front door and quickly backed inside with a fir tree that was taller than he was in his arms.

Jo shot toward the kitchen door. “Can I pop the popcorn?”

“Hold up,” Nick called to her. “Wait for an adult to help.”

He moved to help David wrestle the tree into place while Tillie danced in circles.

Ben and Eli stood back watching. This was the quietest they’d been all day.

Elsie moved closer to Nick. “Are you sure about this? What about—” Your brothers.

He seemed to understand what she’d left unsaid. Would Drew, Ed, and Isaac be upset if they weren’t included in this family tradition?

The corner of Nick’s mouth lifted. “It’ll be all right.”

Ben stared at the tree. “What do we put on it?”

Kaitlyn had given Elsie a crash course on the family dynamics last night. She knew Ben and Eli were Clare’s nephews and that they’d moved into the McGraw family weeks ago. The boys’ parents were both gone.

She slipped her arm around Ben’s shoulders. “What did your ma and pa put on your tree?”

Ben hesitated, and Eli was suspiciously silent. Tillie spoke up. “Eli and Ben never had Christmas before.”

“So what?” Eli said with a tilt of his chin.

She saw the uncertainty in Ben’s face.

What must their life have been like to never have celebrated something like Christmas?

Elsie’s pa hadn’t celebrated Christmas either after her mother died. At least, if he had, she didn’t remember it.

After the Westons had taken her in, Darcy had gone out of her way to make Christmas special. But Elsie had always known her place with them wasn’t guaranteed. Even at Christmas.

New purpose stirred excitement within Elsie. She looked down at Ben, including Eli in her statement too. “Well, it’s my first Christmas with the McGraws too. We can learn about McGraw traditions.”

Ben brightened.

“Come help me stabilize the tree, Eli?” Nick’s voice was muffled beneath the branches.

It wasn’t long before everyone was busy. Clare had returned from the barn and was helping Jo pop heaps of corn. It kept mysteriously disappearing from the table where Jo, Eli, and Ben strung it with needles and thread.

Nick had brought in a crate of dried cornhusks to make ornaments, and the cornhusks were now soaking in a large metal bowl at the end of the table. Tillie flitted around the room, unable to contain her excitement.

“Can you help me tie a knot?” Ben asked. Elsie obliged.

Nick stepped back from the fireplace, his eyes scanning the progress. “That looks good, David. I like the pine bough on the mantel.”

At Nick’s words, Elsie glanced across the room, and their gazes collided. She quickly looked down to where she was showing Tillie how to fold a wet cornhusk into a star.

“Remember last Christmas, Jo?” David asked.

Jo held up her hands in surrender, the needle she was threading popcorn with still between her thumb and index finger. “I didn’t know the barn cat would tip the tree over.”

Tillie started to laugh, the husk unfolding in her hand. “That was funny.”

David shook his head. “Pa was so mad.”

Tillie scrunched her nose up. “Pa doesn’t get so mad now that he’n Kaitlyn are married,” she proclaimed. She looked innocently up at Elsie. “Are you ever gonna get married?”

This time Elsie couldn’t chance catching Nick’s gaze. She kept her eyes on the cornhusk, guiding Tillie’s fingers where they needed to go. “I don’t know.”

Why was it Nick was her first thought at the girl’s innocent question? Arnold was the more likely candidate. Arnold, who she needed to write a return letter to.

Rebekah cleared her throat as she carried a bowl of freshly popped popcorn over to the table. “I remember when I was a kid, I loved helping my aunt make the best peppermint candy. We even put some on our tree.”

Ben’s eyes widened. “Can we do that?”

“Nope,” Jo inserted. “David would eat it all.”

“I would not.”

“I might,” Eli said.

A laugh burst out of Elsie.

She wrung out a soaking cornhusk and handed it to Tillie. Water droplets flew everywhere in the girl’s exuberance. Elsie stilled Tillie’s hands with a gentle touch. “I remember one of my first Christmases with the Westons. I missed my pa so much.”

That Christmas, she’d sat by the window, hoping her father would finally come. He never had.

She cleared the emotion from her throat and wrung out another cornhusk for herself.

“It was the first time I met Merritt. She’d come home with my sister Darcy for the break.

Darcy must have noticed I was lonely, because she pulled me over to where she and Merritt had started making cornhusk dolls.

Before long, they had me laughing and feeling at home. ”

Tillie made the next fold Elsie showed her. “How come you’re not with your family now?”

It was a loaded question. All those expectations, waiting for her under the Westons’ roof. “My sister is all grown up”—Elsie gave the girl the easier answer—“with a husband of her own. Christmas isn’t the same without her.”

It grew quiet around the table. Elsie kept her focus on the next cornhusk, those old feelings pressing in.

“Sometimes you need new traditions, Tillie.” Nick’s voice brought Elsie’s head up. She hadn’t noticed that he and David had joined them at the table, both trying to make a star.

Tillie nudged Elsie for the next step, but Elsie couldn’t look away from Nick. His eyes were warm and compassionate, and she remembered what she’d told him in the doctor’s clinic. Those broken pieces she’d always kept to herself. He knew now.

Here, in a crowded room, he saw the real her.

And the way he was looking at her—as if he were proud of her—rekindled all those old feelings.